tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/melbourne-international-film-festival-29840/articlesMelbourne International Film Festival – The Conversation2017-08-21T19:21:10Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/813212017-08-21T19:21:10Z2017-08-21T19:21:10ZThe 2017 Melbourne International Film Festival: films to watch out for<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182718/original/file-20170821-17172-xwafct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer in Call Me By Your Name: an erotic romance imbued with the effervescence of a European summer.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Frenesy</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The theme of this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival was to “explore new worlds”, which saw matters of social justice, empathy and connection examined in many films. Between us, we saw 34 films this year. These are our highlights.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/top-of-the-lake-china-girl-is-defiant-adventurous-tv-81273">Top of the Lake: China Girl is defiant, adventurous TV</a>
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<h2>Sacred deer and sacred music</h2>
<p><strong>Felicity Ford</strong></p>
<p>It seems peculiar to name <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5715874/">The Killing of a Sacred Deer</a> as my favourite film of the festival as I spent most of the screening oscillating between anxiously gripping the edge of my seat and nervously laughing. But it is always an illuminating experience to step into the mind of director Yorgos Lanthimos (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1379182/">Dogtooth</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3464902/">The Lobster</a>) and this fascinating study of a family under threat is his best yet. Ruben Östlund’s beautifully constructed, darkly funny, and perfectly timed satire <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4995790/">The Square</a> was a very close second favourite. </p>
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<p>However, in the wake of the Charlottesville Nazi riot, the film that remains firmly imprinted in my mind is Raoul Peck’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5804038/">I Am Not Your Negro</a>. The documentary explores the civil rights movement of the 1960s through the work of queer writer and civil rights activist, James Baldwin. Using found footage from the time and anchored by an unfinished manuscript by Baldwin, the film draws uncomfortable parallels with the present day. It is a stirring and pertinent documentary that is as much an ode to the key figures of the movement as it is a call to arms. </p>
<p>The tragic death of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-dr-g-yunupinu-took-yolnu-culture-to-the-world-81676">Dr. G Yunupingu</a> a week before the festival brought into question whether Paul William’s documentary on the most commercially successful Aboriginal musician would be screened at all. However with the support of Gumatj elder David Djunga Djunga Yunupingu and his community, the film was presented at the Closing Night Gala to a standing ovation. It is a powerful and insightful film into the life of a very private and principled man. While it is unclear when the documentary will be released in keeping with the traditions of Dr. G Yunupingu’s community, I would strongly recommend the film as a beautiful exploration of Australia’s “top end” and the strong familial bonds that keep this community going strong. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/how-dr-g-yunupinu-took-yolnu-culture-to-the-world-81676">How Dr G.Yunupiŋu took Yolŋu culture to the world</a>
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<p>Also in the realm of music, audiences flocked to Hamer Hall for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s haunting live score of Paul Thomas Anderson’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0469494/">There Will Be Blood</a> and composer/filmmaker Michel Chion’s lecture and concert were sold out almost immediately. Hear My Eyes - events that marry a film with live interpretation of its score - once again delivered with René Laloux’s psychedelic romp <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070544/">Fantastic Planet</a> soundtracked from the balcony of the Comedy Theatre by Melbourne’s own Krakatau. </p>
<p>While Denis Côté’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt7133648/">A Skin So Soft</a> didn’t garner much interest from punters, it was definitely one of the standouts for me: an intimate portrayal of strength and muscle building practices. </p>
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<p>Audiences also laughed and squirmed in equal measure for Michael Haneke’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5304464/">Happy End</a> and were charmed by Agnès Varda and JR’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5598102/">Faces, Places</a> and Olivier Babinet’s excellent doco about French teens, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5535406/">Swagger</a>. </p>
<h2>Storks, swan songs and sexual tension</h2>
<p><strong>Stuart Richards</strong></p>
<p>Co-curated by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and presented in association with the National Film and Sound Archive, the festival’s Pioneering Women retrospective offered a triumphant selection of important films directed by women in the 1980s and 1990s, including Ann Turner’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094849/">Celia</a> and Laurie McInnes’ <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106487/">Broken Highway</a>. </p>
<p>I was very pleased to see João Pedro Rodrigues’ <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4929038/">The Ornithologist</a>, which sees a young ornithologist researching black storks get lost in an enchanted forest in northern Portugal. I have been following his career since <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1424361/">To Die Like a Man</a> and he is one of the more interesting queer filmmakers working today. </p>
<p>Michael Haneke’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5304464/">Happy End</a> offered a self-aware critique of familial alienation that, while intellectually interesting, was a quite an unenjoyable experience. Abbas Kiarostami’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6777170/">24 Frames</a>, was sadly the low point of the festival for me. The exploration of “cinema’s bare essentials: image and time” presented 24 tableaux, which grew increasingly more tiresome. Kiarostami was known for preferring films that put audiences to sleep. In this regard, he would have been very pleased with my response to 24 Frames.</p>
<p>In Agnes Varda’s unlikely collaboration with artist JR, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5598102/">Places, Faces</a> (Visages Villages) takes us on a joyous wander through rural France. Many are saying that this is to be Varda’s last film and, if so, this will be the most perfect of swan songs. It’s wonderful and has the right amount of whimsy. The two drive their mobile photo booth from village to village, where they take portraits of people they meet on their way, pasting their results on buildings the subjects either call home or work. The chemistry between the two is real and a pleasure to watch. There is never any condescension with the subjects they meet, whether it is the the dock workers’ wives or Pony, the toothless poet. They are trying to capture the “human through art” in their collaboration with these subjects.</p>
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<p>In Luca Guadagnino’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5726616/">Call me by your name</a>, Timothée Chalamet plays Elio, a young Italian-American who is enamoured by Oliver, a student, played by the enchanting Armie Hammer. Oliver comes to study and live with his family in northern Italy during summer. The film follows the mounting sexual tension between the two and their erotic romance, which is imbued with the effervescence of a European summer. Chalemet’s quiet performance is a joyous exploration of the anguish and euphoria of first love. Elio’s conversation with his father in the last act, followed by an utterly raw credit sequence, is a powerful refusal to disavow one’s emotions. If the #MIFF2017 tag is anything to go by, Call my by your name was the clear audience favourite this year. Oh, and, for better or for worse, you will never look at peaches the same way.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6135348/">120 Beats Per Minute</a> (120 Battements par minute) highlights the unbreakable bonds at the heart of the queer community, which was especially affective for me given the already toxic nature of the marriage equality postal survey. With the AIDS crisis already having claimed countless lives by the early 1990s, the film follows several members of ACT UP Paris, who fight corporate greed and general indifference. New to the group, Nathan is enamoured by Sean, a more militant member of the group who is throwing every last ounce of energy he has into the struggle. </p>
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<span class="caption">Robin Campillo’s 120 BPM depicts queer activism in 1990s France.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">France 3</span></span>
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<p>Director Robin Campillo has a talent for presenting a group discussion, where many participants are individualised and seen as valued characters in the narrative. These increasingly tense meetings never feel tiresome or unwelcome. The film also depicts serodiscordant sex (in which one partner is HIV positive) in a highly erotic way. </p>
<p>The group’s protest actions, such as the invasion of the offices of a pharmaceutical giant, are energetic and thrilling. The highlights of the film, however, are the poetic dances sequences that cut to blood cells. Bronski Beat’s gay anthem <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xuz94ZIPfJk">Smalltown Boy</a> features in the film, as it does in many films depicting this era. Here though it is used in a powerful protest sequence, recalling the tune’s cultural resonance from the ACT UP era.</p>
<p>I second Felicity’s enthusiasm on The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Square and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s brilliant performance of Jonny Greenwood’s score from Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood. The closing night celebration of Dr. G Yunupingu’s was an immensely affective experience. The audience gave a standing ovation for the entirety of the credits and it was a privilege to be able to attend the screening. I Am Not Negro is a timely film that cuts together the past and present giving a searing indictment on racial inequality today. </p>
<p>Now it’s time to slowly recover from the dreaded MIFF flu, a fortnight of dark theatres, and a diet of popcorn, shiraz, and, above all else, exciting cinema.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81321/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>MIFF 2017 made good on its promise to explore new worlds, with timely films on American civil rights, Indigenous music, and queer activism. Here's our pick of the ones to see.Stuart Richards, Researcher and Lecturer in Screen and Cultural Studies, University of MelbourneFelicity Ford, Researcher and Sessional Tutor in Screen and Cultural Studies; Project Coordinator for the Graduate Researcher Peer Networking Program at the Graduate Student Association (GSA), University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/812732017-08-07T20:10:39Z2017-08-07T20:10:39ZTop of the Lake: China Girl is defiant, adventurous TV<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181136/original/file-20170807-11203-1mz5ycs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nicole Kidman as Julie in Top of the Lake: China Girl: a control freak brought to her knees.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">See-Saw Films for BBC First and Foxtel</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“I want it to go for six hours, and I want it to be about a group of postmenopausal women. Unfuckables,” said Jane Campion of her vision for the television show <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2103085/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Top of the Lake</a>. </p>
<p>In the first episode of its second season, a turquoise suitcase containing a woman’s body washes up on the shore of Bondi Beach, pulled out of the water by a lifeguard too late to save her. A fragile-looking, almost birdlike female detective with iceberg-blue eyes pries open the case and sees its gruesome contents. True to Campion’s original vision, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5024708/?ref_=tt_eps_cu_n">Top of the Lake: China Girl</a> dwells resolutely in the land of the unfuckable.</p>
<p>Co-written by frequent collaborator Gerard Lee and co-directed by Ariel Kleiman, Top of the Lake: China Girl is set four-ish years after season one’s Queenstown paedophile-ring bust. A few weeks after an aborted marriage, the singular Elizabeth Moss is back as Detective Robin Griffin (now a Detective Senior Constable). She has returned to Sydney to reconnect with the daughter she gave up for adoption and get her life back on track by training new police recruits on the Walsh Bay wharf.</p>
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<span class="caption">Elisabeth Moss as Detective Robin Griffin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">See-Saw Films for and Foxtel</span></span>
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<p>Taking on the risky business of migrant sex work, Campion has spoken of basing the new series on extensive <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/jul/18/jane-campion-my-top-of-the-lake-research-involved-sneaking-into-brothels">research</a> conducted in a stretch of brothels in the south-eastern Sydney suburb of Mascot. “Silk 41”, the fictional centrepoint for much of the series’ drama, functions as a red-lit replica of the establishments Campion has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/jul/18/jane-campion-my-top-of-the-lake-research-involved-sneaking-into-brothels">reported</a> frequenting.</p>
<p>A sassy Prada-wearing escort serves, perhaps, to include the perspectives of the sex workers in the advocacy group Scarlet Alliance who also worked with Campion in an advisory capacity. These moments of meta-fiction, though sometimes a little clumsily integrated, highlight Campion’s intent in not only making good use of her vast research, but also acknowledging and respecting voices so often ignored.</p>
<p>Campion sets herself apart from the run of the mill crime drama tropes by de-eroticising Cinnamon, the “shop name” of the woman found in the suitcase, whose image and life are interrogated throughout the series. Cinnamon’s waterlogged body is shown decomposing and distorted beyond recognition, an honest depiction reminiscent of Lynda La Plante’s landmark crime drama series Prime Suspect.</p>
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<p>Though there have been critics who feel Campion’s signposting of feminist issues is heavy-handed, in a Q &amp; A after the Sydney premiere of the show’s first two episodes, Campion declared </p>
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<p>China Girl is beyond feminism … it’s ovarian, know what I mean? </p>
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<p>Indeed everything is focused around pregnancies, even morgue scenes. As Robin (Moss) and the coroner, Ray (Geoff Morrell), dig around in the body of Cinnamon to discover a tiny male foetus that turns out to be an irregular DNA surrogate implant, Campion is not-so-subtlety reminding us that not all sex-work takes place in a brothel. </p>
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<span class="caption">Gwendoline Christie: her character plays off Moss’s wonderfully in the show.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">See-Saw Films for BBC First and Foxtel</span></span>
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<p>After the suitcase discovery, Robin is teamed up with rookie cop Miranda (played by Gwendoline Christie of Game of Thrones fame), who serves as an open and very enthusiastic offset to Robin’s stand-offishness. Moss and Christie play off each other wonderfully, as do Alice Englert and Nicole Kidman, who play Robin’s daughter Mary, and her adoptive mother Julie, who Campion has <a href="http://miff.com.au/program/film/miff-talks-top-of-the-lake-china-girl-in-conversation">described</a> as “a suburban queen; a control freak brought to her knees.”</p>
<p>Mary and Julie clash – horribly – and in a typical adolescent act of rebellion Mary brings home series villain Puss (David Dencik), a brothel owner and faux-intellectual more than 20 years her senior.</p>
<p>Puss (soft spoken and aptly named) waxes lyrical about feminism and quotes Dostoevsky whilst toting a copy of the Socialist Alternative rag Red Flag and lighting a skinny, half-smoked cigarette. Living above Silk 41, he claims to be a product of rape, similar to Mary. He seems aloof from the violence and death surrounding him, yet there is something infuriatingly condescending about his gap-toothed smile when he faces off against Julia in a disastrous dinner scene. </p>
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<span class="caption">David Dencik as Puss: brothel owner and faux-intellectual.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">See-Saw Films for BBC First and Foxtel</span></span>
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<p>He’s an insidious version of the other machismo collective of the series, a café-bound ring of men who run “Hooker Rater,” a fairly self-explanatory porn website. The show’s redeeming male presence is, however, Mary’s adoring adoptive father, Pyke (played by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2091880/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Dead Europe</a>’s Ewen Leslie), who functions as a welcome lynchpin for much of the drama’s underlying tensions. Apart from Pyke, it would be difficult to find any character in the series who isn’t inherently flawed or unlikeable. Likeable simply isn’t Campion’s shtick.</p>
<h2>Ominous visual beauty</h2>
<p>The somehow ominous visual beauty of Top of the Lake: China Girl, which <a href="http://miff.com.au/program/film/top-of-the-lake-china-girl">aired in full</a> at MIFF at the weekend, is truly something to behold. Harking back to her earlier work (in films like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199626/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">In the Cut</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107822/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Piano</a>), poetic images - a burning wedding dress held above a bonfire by two cackling men on a ute, a suitcase drifting peacefully across the sea floor - are poised against gorgeous vistas: New Zealand mountain ranges or a Sydney seascape.</p>
<p>There is definitely a sense of Campion being more adventurous in this second season, in both the defiant subject matter and images that crystallise it. In one dream sequence, for instance, fluorescent babies surround a chuckling Robin before she is shown thrashing and screaming in her sleep.</p>
<p>The wide-angle shots of Walsh Bay as police jog by in lapis uniforms - in a rippling reflection of the surrounding sea - offset what would otherwise be an over-reliance on mid-shot interior dialogue scenes, which threaten to turn the series into a boring police procedural. (I’m looking at you <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294189/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Fall</a>.) </p>
<p>The red-lit group scenes shot at Silk 41 are catapulted straight out of Lina Wertmüller’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070061/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Love and Anarchy</a>, all arms and freshly-shaved legs jumbled and draped in a sleepy, feminine sculpture. Piano filters through the series elegantly, turning the otherwise abject image of the submerged suitcase containing a dead body into an astonishingly elegant ballet of oceanic wilderness. </p>
<p>This being said – not all experimentations pay off. A dubious film-within-a-film, meta-fictional subplot to set up an end-of-series reveal about South-East Asian surrogacy is an unconvincing dalliance that probably could have been left on the cutting room floor.</p>
<p>At a recent talk on Top of the Lake at MIFF, Lee admitted: “There isn’t a lot of [real] police work that happens [in the show], instead things are solved by someone simply calling and leaving a tip.” This rather convenient occurrence does lead to slight plot inconsistencies and stretch one’s suspension of disbelief at points too far. Lee and Campion, preferring to focus on microagressions, gender politics and interpersonal relationships in lieu of detailing crime drama’s usual nitty-gritty police work, do endanger the series’ otherwise watertight persuasiveness. </p>
<p>This ambiguous relationship to convention however, has not so much dogged as inspired much of Campion’s career, as the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/scarletalliance.org.au/posts/1555010941216632">tensions of sexual and racial politics</a> have been channelled through her mythical personal vision.</p>
<p><em>Top of the Lake: China Girl, will premiere on Foxtel’s BBC First on August 20.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81273/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Blythe Worthy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Jane Campion's second series of Top of the Lake, which premiered in Melbourne at the weekend, is an ominous, lyrical, genre-bending exploration of the sex trade.Blythe Worthy, PhD Candidate, The University of Sydney, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/628192016-08-01T05:00:25Z2016-08-01T05:00:25ZJanis Joplin and Sharon Jones add a feminist beat to the Melbourne Film Festival<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132566/original/image-20160801-25627-1ezj6cy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Janis Joplin in a new documentary, Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015). </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Disarming Films</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Two of the twelve music documentaries featured in the Melbourne International Film Festival’s <a href="http://miff.com.au/program/streams/backbeat">Backbeat program</a> this year are about iconic female blues singers: Janis Joplin and Sharon Jones. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3707114/">Janis: Little Girl Blue</a> (2015) is a posthumous look at arguably, the world’s <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=hXW80rEd-HgC&amp;pg=PA69&amp;lpg=PA69&amp;dq=is+joplin,+worlds+first+female+rock+icon?&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=3vC9kptQWw&amp;sig=NQNAR3CKUFs30SxSkkumTB3mhns&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwiWu77FrJ3OAhUBuJQKHaXvD08Q6AEIRjAH#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false">first female rock icon</a> while <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3707114/">Miss Sharon Jones!</a> (2015), the “<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/sharon-jones-fights-on-i-have-cancer-cancer-dont-have-me-w431601">female James Brown</a>” is battling to keep her music alive after a pancreatic cancer diagnosis in 2013. </p>
<p>The films, which had their Australian premiers at MIFF, challenge the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/girls-to-the-front/7223798">misrepresentation and marginalisation</a> of women in the music industry. They are also directed by award-winning women, <a href="http://variety.com/exec/amy-berg-ii/">Amy Berg</a> and <a href="http://www.cabincreekfilms.com/barbara_kopple.html">Barbara Kopple</a>, in another industry where women <a href="http://variety.com/2015/film/news/women-hollywood-inequality-directors-behind-the-camera-1201626691/">struggle to get ahead</a>. </p>
<p>Janis: Little Girl Blue is a nostalgic musical journey based on rare archive footage. It is laced with interviews with her younger siblings (Laura and Michael), but largely features members of her boy bands: firstly Big Brother and the Holding Company, and her later backing bands, Kozmic Blues Band, and the Full Tilt Boogie Band.</p>
<p>We follow Joplin’s upbringing in the small, conservative mining town of Port Arthur, Texas in the 1940s, leading to her student days at the University of Texas in the early 60s, and her debut in Austin’s burgeoning folksy blues college music scene. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132568/original/image-20160801-25646-ma0py4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132568/original/image-20160801-25646-ma0py4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132568/original/image-20160801-25646-ma0py4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=392&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132568/original/image-20160801-25646-ma0py4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=392&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132568/original/image-20160801-25646-ma0py4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=392&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132568/original/image-20160801-25646-ma0py4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=493&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132568/original/image-20160801-25646-ma0py4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=493&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132568/original/image-20160801-25646-ma0py4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=493&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Disarming Films</span></span>
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<p>The images of Joplin’s involvement in the development of the San Francisco psychedelic sound during the mid-60s are a highlight of the film; while the scenes associated with her lonesome demise in Hollywood in 1970 are melancholic. </p>
<p>Joplin emerged as the premier blues vocalist of the 1960s. As Sheila Whiteley wrote in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/298232.Women_and_Popular_Music">Women and Popular Music: Sexuality, Identity and Subjectivity</a> (2000), Joplin’s recording of Little Girl Blue (1969) offered “a new delicate and compassionate insight into blueness”.</p>
<p>Nicknamed the Mother of the Blues, Joplin sang to her own Southern acoustic beat and inspired other female musicians, such as Sharon Jones, to combine rhythm and blues with extraordinary soul. </p>
<p>Miss Sharon Jones! is a medical mix tape of the 60-year-old singer’s struggle with cancer since 2013, her loyalty to her Brooklyn-based indie label, <a href="http://daptonerecords.com/sharon-jones-and-the-dap-kings/">Daptone Records</a> and life on the road with the Dap Kings, where – like Joplin – Jones was The Girl in the band. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132569/original/image-20160801-25630-13gkbnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132569/original/image-20160801-25630-13gkbnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132569/original/image-20160801-25630-13gkbnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=360&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132569/original/image-20160801-25630-13gkbnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=360&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132569/original/image-20160801-25630-13gkbnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=360&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132569/original/image-20160801-25630-13gkbnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=452&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132569/original/image-20160801-25630-13gkbnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=452&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132569/original/image-20160801-25630-13gkbnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=452&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Miss Sharon Jones!</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cabin Creek Films</span></span>
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<p>Jones learnt her craft as a gospel singer in church, and worked in various jobs (for example, as a prison warden), before a mid-life career break as a session backup singer for soul and funk legend, Lee Fields in 1996. Her band the Dap Kings, which formed in 2002, helped to rekindle a <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/keeping-up-with-the-jones-sharon-jones-and-the-dap-kings-return">renaissance in funk and soul music</a>. </p>
<p>Understandably, both documentaries differ in tone. Janis, Little Girl Blue laments the loss of a great talent at <a href="http://theconversation.com/the-27-club-the-one-you-dont-want-to-join-2494">age 27</a>. Joplin’s fourth (and most famous) album, Pearl, was released three months after her death from an accidental heroin overdose. It delivered a Number 1 Billboard hit with Me and Bobby McGee. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jK3rPSO55KY?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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<p>In contrast, Miss Sharon Jones! celebrates Jones as a soul survivor, who has cancer but is using music as a remedy. </p>
<p>Both stress that Joplin and Jones experienced marginalisation in the music industry, not only because of their gender, but also because of their appearance. </p>
<p>When the plain looking, slightly overweight and acne-scarred Joplin strutted her musical talent at University of Texas, she was nominated as the “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Texas-rhythm-rhyme-pictorial-history/dp/0932012736">Ugliest Man on campus</a>”. </p>
<p>Later Joplin was criticised by feminists for <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=hXW80rEd-HgC&amp;pg=PA69&amp;lpg=PA69&amp;dq=is+joplin,+worlds+first+female+rock+icon?&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=3vC9kptQWw&amp;sig=NQNAR3CKUFs30SxSkkumTB3mhns&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwiWu77FrJ3OAhUBuJQKHaXvD08Q6AEIRjAH#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false">exploiting her bisexuality</a> at a time when popular culture was grappling with “the problems of image and the representation” of women. In her brief eight year career, Whitely argues, Joplin had “the balls to succeed in the brotherhood of rock”. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132570/original/image-20160801-25624-c9a10w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132570/original/image-20160801-25624-c9a10w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132570/original/image-20160801-25624-c9a10w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=302&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132570/original/image-20160801-25624-c9a10w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=302&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132570/original/image-20160801-25624-c9a10w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=302&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132570/original/image-20160801-25624-c9a10w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=380&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132570/original/image-20160801-25624-c9a10w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=380&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132570/original/image-20160801-25624-c9a10w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=380&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Miss Sharon Jones! (2015)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cabin Creek Films,</span></span>
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<p>In a similar vein, Sharon Jones, who released her first record at age 40, was told she was “<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/sharon-jones-fights-on-i-have-cancer-cancer-dont-have-me-w431601">too old, too fat, too short, too black</a>” to make it in the industry. </p>
<p>Yet both films hit high emotional notes. The highlight of Miss Sharon Jones! is watching her sixth album with the Dap Kings, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmLl21gZjfM">Give The People What They Want</a>, be nominated for the band’s first Grammy in the <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/keeping-up-with-the-jones-sharon-jones-and-the-dap-kings-return">Best R&amp;B album section</a>. </p>
<p>Both these singers’ train-rattling, emotionally powerful voices became trademarks in an industry that prides itself on radicalism, yet silences woman from serious discussion and participation. </p>
<p><br></p>
<hr>
<p><em>Radio RRR is hosting a talk on <a href="http://www.rrr.org.au/whats-going-on/rrr-presents/live-to-airs/">Monday 1 August from 4pm to 7pm</a> at the Forum about Janis: Little Girl Blue and Miss Sharon Jones.</em></p>
<p><em><a href="http://miff.com.au/program/film/miss-sharon-jones">Miss Sharon Jones!</a> is showing at the Melbourne International Film Festival on August 12. <a href="http://miff.com.au/program/film/janis-little-girl-blue">Janis: Little Girl Blue</a> is showing on August 13.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62819/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Jean Baker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Janis Joplin was once voted the 'Ugliest Man on Campus'. Sharon Jones was told she was 'too old, too fat, too short, too black' to succeed in music. Two documentaries chart the lives of these extraordinary women.Andrea Jean Baker, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/632592016-07-29T05:35:51Z2016-07-29T05:35:51ZThe tragi-comedy Down Under appropriates Cronulla rather than offering insight<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132455/original/image-20160729-24648-1ehnur1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the Melbourne International Film Festival</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Abe Forsythe’s black comedy <a href="http://tix4.miff.com.au/session.asp?sn=CENTREPIECE+GALA+-+DOWN+UNDER&amp;s=2037&amp;plbsrc=g_f#_ga=1.12111735.2145922839.1463115282">Down Under</a> is set the day after the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/cronulla-rioters-10-years-later-speak-of-pride-regret-death-im-not-ashamed-20151127-gl9mrh.html">2005 Christmas Cronulla Riots</a> and undertakes a re-processing of these events. It starts with newsreel footage that brings back this raw, racist national wound of running mob fights, the derisive calls, the cars, the drinking, the police batons, the flags and the arrests. </p>
<p>A group of “Leb” and a group of “Skip” men plan retaliations for this event. They are destined to meet in an inevitable car crash that tragically unravels on a dark suburban street. </p>
<p>“Skip” is an inventive piece of Australian slang that simultaneously delivers both the image of the kangaroo and the idea of “white trash”. The film’s archetypal characters promise the in-your-face irrational gestural and verbal violence that Paul Fenech has effectively delivered to our television screens with <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2103538/">Housos</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0244357/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">Pizza</a>.</p>
<p>Jason (Damon Herriman) brings together the locals, the movie store employee Shit-Stick (Alexander England), Shit-Stick’s Down’s Syndrome cousin Evan (Chris Bunton) and Ditch (Justin Rosniak), a Ned Kelly admirer. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132456/original/image-20160729-24679-x0nuy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132456/original/image-20160729-24679-x0nuy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132456/original/image-20160729-24679-x0nuy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=409&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132456/original/image-20160729-24679-x0nuy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=409&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132456/original/image-20160729-24679-x0nuy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=409&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132456/original/image-20160729-24679-x0nuy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=514&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132456/original/image-20160729-24679-x0nuy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=514&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132456/original/image-20160729-24679-x0nuy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=514&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Alexander England, Chris Bunton, Damon Herriman and Justin Rosniak in Down Under (2016).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
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<p>Ditch, whose head is wrapped in bandages to nurse his new tattoo, is reminiscent of those blurred heads that bring anonymity to some criminal activity in newsreel footage. (Interestingly, this is a news gatherers’ technique that was glaringly missing in the original footage of the riots.)</p>
<p>Lakemba’s Nick (Rahel Romahn) gathers rapper D-Mac (Fayssal Bazzi), the studious Hassim (Lincoln Younes) and the devout Ibrahim (Michael Denkha) to his group for a raid. Guns are involved, each group obtaining theirs by comical means. One is an operational family heirloom from the first world war, the other obtained through a surreal drug underworld situation. </p>
<p>Unlike Fenech’s concoctions, Forsythe uses the Evan and Ibrahim characters to slip in a moral voice, that somehow blunts the “irrational” violence rather than explains it. Trauma is experienced viscerally in the heat of the moment. It is not explained but felt, to be re-processed later, a struggle to bring meaning, story and context. </p>
<p>Yet rather than closing the wound, the film further dumbfounds it. Down Under is entertainment, after all, that appropriates these historic events to its service. It does not deliver any insights into the racism at their core.</p>
<p>Though entertaining, with strong acting performances, Forsythe’s characters lack the unpredictable edge of Fenech’s “working class” characters, who, with their staccato voices and body gestures, affect us before reason kicks in.</p>
<p>In this film we are not inside the storm, but witness an aftermath from both sides of a suburban fence. Both group’s stories are uncannily similar. The perfect storm has subsided, and these are its echoes treated through reason, morality and the “foolishness of male youth” trope of storytelling.</p>
<p>The inherent repetition of the title “Down Under” reminds one of the Australian preference for double negatives like “not bad” rather than “good” and “never say never” for unbridled hope.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132457/original/image-20160729-24653-1yl7j11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132457/original/image-20160729-24653-1yl7j11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132457/original/image-20160729-24653-1yl7j11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=399&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132457/original/image-20160729-24653-1yl7j11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=399&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132457/original/image-20160729-24653-1yl7j11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=399&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132457/original/image-20160729-24653-1yl7j11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=502&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132457/original/image-20160729-24653-1yl7j11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=502&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132457/original/image-20160729-24653-1yl7j11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=502&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Down Under (2016).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The crossover between Australian entertainment, comedy and politics has an uneven history. There were Norman Gunston’s gesticulations on the steps of Parliament as Gough Whitlam addressed the crowd during his dismissal and Bob Hawke’s brush-off of Gunston that this was too serious for send-up.</p>
<p>There was the underdog humour of Nick Giannopoulos’s 1980’s Wogs Out of Work and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122333/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Acropolis Now</a>, which reconfigured the word <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0216417/?ref_=tt_rec_tt">wog</a> as a badge of honour. This was comedy that sourced and transformed the real-life experiences of its writers and their audience. Even earlier, Paul Hogan had re-branded the Australian Ocker from the inside, to later transform it into the heroics of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090555/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Crocodile Dundee</a>.</p>
<p>Today, we’ve got to the point where a significant amount of our current affairs news and commentary is actually dished up by comedians on shows like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2115160/">The Project</a>.</p>
<p>Down Under also brings to mind a 60s and 70s Melbourne radio news program on 3UZ called <a href="https://soundcloud.com/alex-hehr/3uz-newsbeat-dec1964">Newsbeat</a>. Every Sunday morning Newsbeat documented the road accidents of the night before, with on-the-spot reportage and interviews, harvesting the impulsive “Strine” lingo of the misguided youth at the heart of many of its incidents. These documents provided a source for the raw violence expressed through Mad Max’s road culture. Indeed, Down Under’s story would not have been out of place on Newsbeat.</p>
<p>The power of Down Under lies most clearly as a tragic commentary on impulsive male youth car culture, where the inept behaviour of the group visits irreversible consequences on its participants. </p>
<p>Forsythe’s tragi-comedy effectively addresses those switches between the emotional ride and its consequent carnage. As an engaging, deftly-structured male coming of age film it forgets Cronulla, rather than understands it.</p>
<p>Mischievously, I’d make the point that this is our tradition. Forgetting lies at the core of our national identity. After all, “our” foundation event was that Terra Nullius moment when the Union Jack was raised on these shores with the understanding that there was nothing here.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63259/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dirk de Bruyn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The male coming of age tale Down Under is set in the aftermath of the 2005 Cronulla riots. But while entertaining, the film doesn't help us understand the racism at the heart of these traumatic events.Dirk de Bruyn, Associate Professor of Screen, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.